


grand budapest

by spicyjarvis



Series: the ineffable idiots [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Crowley Whump (Good Omens), Crowley hates Gabriel, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Crowley, Hurt/Comfort, I use caps in the fic, I've never written him before but I did my best, In which my titles have nothing to do with the fic itself, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), It's just the song I happen to be listening to as I write these tags, Just not in the title or the summary, M/M, Mention of dry heaving, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mild Language, Probably OOC Gabriel, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Puking implication, Sick Character, Sick Crowley (Good Omens), Sickness, Snake Crowley (Good Omens), Snakes can't talk!!, Soft Aziraphale (Good Omens), mysterious sickness, reupload lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 12:32:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19441540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spicyjarvis/pseuds/spicyjarvis
Summary: crowley’s body is resting bonelessly against the toilet with his head hanging over the rim as if he’s too weak to even try to lift it. even before aziraphale gets a closer look at him, he can see the thick layer of sweat on his white-as-a-sheet skin and the telling dampness in the roots of his fiery reddish hair. his chest is heaving, his breathing sounds rough and wet, and that combined with everything else he’s seeing causes something heavy to settle in the pit of aziraphale’s stomach.





	grand budapest

**Author's Note:**

> reuploaded because i wasn't happy with it the first time.  
> i think this is a little better.
> 
> also snake!crowley can't talk in my headcanon because i don't give a fuck.

Crowley’s sleeping schedule is almost as consistent as the average human’s. Almost, being the keyword here - there are times he’d sleep for weeks at a time or not at all, especially when he’s under an unusual amount of stress. Even with that in consideration, though, there is definitely some sort of oddball consistency in there that is unusual for supernatural entities that technically don’t actually need to sleep.

Over the years he’s been on Earth, Aziraphale never got into sleep as much as his partner did. He tried, he really did, but there was something about the whole idea of lying in a bed with his eyes closed for a long period of time just to pass the time that didn’t quite work out for him. Most of the time, he would lie in bed with Crowley as he slept, but he himself didn’t tend to actually try and _sleep_ \- usually, he’d stay up reading a book until his partner stirred at his side.

It happens to be one of those nights when Aziraphale is up and about doing things around the bookshop instead of lying in bed when he hears it - the distinctive sound of someone dry heaving into the toilet.

Concern immediately worms its way into Aziraphale’s chest and he moves to climb the stairs into the apartment. The duvet cover on the bed is creased, thrown around, and the gangly lamppost of a demon is missing from underneath it.

When the angel nudges the door of the bathroom open, the sight presented to him is decidedly quite worrying. 

Crowley’s body is resting bonelessly against the toilet with his head hanging over the rim as if he’s too weak to even _try_ to lift it. Even before Aziraphale gets a closer look at him, he can see the thick layer of sweat on his white-as-a-sheet skin and the telling dampness in the roots of his fiery reddish hair. His chest is heaving, his breathing sounds rough and wet, and that combined with everything else he’s seeing causes something heavy to settle in the pit of Aziraphale’s stomach.

It isn’t common or normal at all for a supernatural entity to catch human illnesses - as far as he’s aware, anyway - and so Aziraphale is left to believe that this is some sort of demon thing he’s yet to be informed of. He only hopes that it isn’t enough to discorporate (he doesn’t think about the possibility of it killing him completely because he doesn’t want to) his lifelong partner.

“Crowley, dear,” Aziraphale murmurs. “Can you hear me?”

His partner groans into the toilet.

With the gentle hands of any storybook angel, Aziraphale eases Crowley so he’s sitting against the wall instead of practically inside of the toilet. His skin looked to be an unusually pale shade beforehand, but now Aziraphale can see his face properly, he observes that it’s actually more of a sickly grey. The demon’s yellow serpent’s eyes are an unfocused, dull void without their characteristically devious flare. They barely seem to register that the angel is sitting not even a foot in front of him.

It’s frightening seeing anyone like this, but Crowley even more so. Aziraphale can feel dread settling in the bottom of his heart as he realises that he doesn’t know what to do to help, doesn’t know what’s wrong and doesn’t know how on Earth he could try to fix it. Even his best attempt at a miracle does next to nothing for the suffering demon in front of him.

He uses a cold, damp hand towel to wipe away some of the sweat on his face and neck. Crowley is a cold-blooded creature and so usually prefers the heat over the cold anyway (no matter how much he’d prefer it to be the other way round - Aziraphale has seen the yearning way he looks at the snow), but this is not a healthy heat. This is not healthy at all.

“Obviously, Aziraphale,” he mutters to his own silent observations. “Come on, Crowley, let’s get you off the floor. It can’t be much good for you to be sitting down here, can it?”

The demon must be listening to him because suddenly he stirs, weakly resisting against Aziraphale’s hands as the angel tries to guide him to his feet. “Nnnoooo….” he slurs. “I’ssssss… cold.”

Aziraphale pauses, stares exasperatedly at Crowley for all of two seconds, and then decidedly plonks back down onto the ground. “We can stay here if you want to, dear,” he says passively. “Do you happen to know what’s wrong? Is there anything I need to get for you?”

“Mmmm,” is all Crowley offers.

“How very informative,” Aziraphale comments, and leaves to get a glass of water from the kitchen.

When he returns only a minute or two later, Crowley is no longer sitting on the ground, instead but lying against it on his back. His eyes are shut and, despite the alarming situation at hand, there’s sort of a content smile on his face, as if he were lounging on the couch in the sun instead of in the bathroom at two in the morning.

“I have a glass of water, Crowley.” Aziraphale sets it down beside the sink and gently runs his hands through his partner’s sweat-drenched red hair. “You need to sit up to drink it, dear. Come on now.”

“Nnnnooo….”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says sternly. He feels as if he’s caring for a stubborn toddler (though Crowley and a stubborn toddler are not far apart in character as it is).

“Zira…”

“Come on, dear. You can lie back down afterwards.” 

Aziraphale doesn’t really give him a choice in the matter - it takes a couple of minutes but he manages to get Crowley sitting upright enough to drink without spilling all of it down the front of his shirt. The demon empties the glass in mere seconds.

“Crowley, I need your help with this. I need you to tell me whether this is something you’ve experienced before.”

“Nnn…. nnnn,” is all the demon gets out.

There isn’t much to say to that, Aziraphale concludes. He gazes at his partner, who has by now returned to dozing weakly on the floor, still running his hands absently through his hair. This whole situation… he’s very much out of his depth. He’s read about these sort of symptoms in medical books before but they were all based on human anatomy - and he’s always thought that supernatural beings would be immune to human illnesses.

Whatever it is, Aziraphale finds it unnerving. It’s frightening to see his lifelong partner and best friend - someone who is usually so animated, so powerful, so strong - in such a vulnerable state.

A couple of quiet minutes sees Crowley all of a sudden stirring where he lies, and he murmurs, “ssssssnake.”

A lightbulb starts to glow in Aziraphale’s brain. It’s most likely much less straining for the demon to exist in his natural form as a snake, especially when he’s sickly and weak as he is now. 

“Now there’s a possibility.”

“Ssss.”

“Go on, Crowley, my dear.”

Slowly, gradually, but ever so smoothly, Crowley’s form shifts from humanoid to reptilian. His snake form is absolutely stunning - he’s a large, thick-bodied python, with glossy black scales that gently fade into a raspberry shade of red at the underbelly. Those yellow eyes are still missing their customary fiery flare but they’re intelligent and expressive nonetheless as they gaze complacently up at Aziraphale.

Aziraphale takes it upon himself to collect Crowley from the floor. Smooth scales slither over the skin on the back of his neck as the demon makes himself comfortable resting over his shoulders, wrapping himself around his arms where he can. 

“That must feel so much better, dear.” The angel runs a reassuring thumb over the glassy, reptilian body of his partner. “You’ll be okay. You’ll see.”

.

For the next couple of weeks, Crowley remains in his snake form quite peacefully. 

Despite not really having an idea of what caused the sudden bout of illness in the first place, he can feel himself gradually feeling stronger and stronger as the days pass. Living in his natural form as opposed to his humanoid one is probably the largest factor in that process - it’s a lot less strain, a lot less thinking, and a lot more relaxing underneath the heat lamp Aziraphale had good-naturedly purchased.

It’s strategically placed so that Crowley can wrap himself around the bannisters of the stairs that lead into their apartment on the floor above while the bookshop is open during the day. Needless to say, he attracted a lot of attention - he’ll never mention it to Aziraphale for fear of looking too soft, but he does quite enjoy it when they scratch the top of his head and run their hands over his glossy black scales.

Sometimes, when Crowley doesn’t quite feel like having customers fuss over him as if he were a customary household pet, he would settle over Aziraphale’s shoulders to doze under the comfort of his partner’s body heat and presence. The angel moved him back onto the bannister whenever he needed to use his arms a lot - because having a large snake wrapped around your limbs does, in fact, limit your movement - but he otherwise didn’t seem to mind it.

It’s one of those days where he’s lying across Aziraphale and the first customer of the day cooes, “oh, what a gorgeous snake, Mr. Fell! What is he?”

“What is he?” Aziraphale echoes. “Why, he’s a snake, dear.”

“I mean his type.” The customer is a pretty young girl, with ginger curls and bright, intelligent eyes. She comes in frequently but only to read in the leather armchair tucked into the corner, not to actually leave with anything. “He looks a little like a python to me, but I’ve never come across a black python with the red underbelly like that. Oh, he has such lovely, expressive eyes. What’s his name?”

“Uh. Raspberry.” Aziraphale stumbles over his words for a moment. “Yes. Raspberry is his name.”

Crowley twitches.

“He’s very beautiful, Mr. Fell.”

“Thank you.” The angel smiles and gently cradles a reluctant Crowley’s head in his hand. “He _is_ very beautiful. The most beautiful snake in the world.”

Crowley continues to absently taste the air with his forked tongue but his heart is hammering with an overwhelming tidal wave of wholesome and rather uncharacteristic affection for his partner. If he weren’t still feeling rubbish, he’d shift back into his humanoid form just to give his angel the biggest, longest kiss on his peachy lips, even if he did just say his name is _Raspberry._

Later that night, after the bookshop is closed up and the stars speckle the velvet blanket of deep, dark blue above them, Aziraphale deposits Crowley onto the table as he bustles around making meals for the two of them. There’s lulling acoustic tunes playing from the radio on the windowsill and the soft breeze gliding in through the gaps between the window panes leaves pleasant chills across his scales. 

This is something that Crowley absolutely adores about his angel, and has done ever since he noticed it - he doesn’t ever let the dynamic between them change even in a situation like this. He took the fact that Crowley would be living as a snake so as to recover in his stride and he still continues to talk, cuddle and fuss as if it were just any normal day. Sometimes he wonders what he did to be lucky enough to spend prolonged mortality with a being so fucking incredible.

“Here you go, Crowley,” Aziraphale says as he places a lukewarm cup of milky tea onto the table. “Just until your food is ready.”

_I love you so fucking much,_ Crowley wishes he could say.

He doesn’t need to, though, because he knows that Aziraphale knows.

.

It’s a quiet Wednesday in the bookshop when Archangel fucking Gabriel strolls through the door.

At this moment, Crowley is dozing rather peacefully under the red light of the heat lamp and he would have probably stayed that way if he were to get his own way. However, hearing Aziraphale anxiously utter the words, “what are you doing here, Gabriel?” made his stomach lurch and he lifts his head to glower at the newcomer.

The man is wearing a robin egg blue suit with a matching tie, looking rather out of place compared to the dusty, beige atmosphere of the bookshop. There’s this infuriating expression in his face that hints Crowley into the fact that he’s silently looking down upon the quaint little place. It’s just enough to ignite a small spark of unresolved hatred within the black and red snake that hangs off the bannister.

“Hello,” Gabriel says neutrally. “I’m just checking in. Seeing how you’re doing. Has the demon Crowley been any trouble lately?”

Aziraphale, barely accustomed to lying to a coworker despite having done it so many times, stumbles awkwardly over his words. “No, not- he’s not been a problem, you’ll- uh, you’ll be glad to know.”

It’s then that the archangel clocks Crowley coiled around the bannister - he’s not hard to miss - and immediately his eyes light up. Without acknowledging what Aziraphale had answered his question with, he turns to gaze at Crowley. “Oh, wow! Look at this big guy over here!”

The demon wishes to spit at him as he approaches, but he catches Aziraphale’s pointed stare over Gabriel’s shoulder, and reluctantly decides it’s best he behaves for now. Gabriel runs a large, rough hand over his glossy black scales. It feels great under any other hand, but this hand, in particular, makes Crowley feel slightly ill again. Words cannot describe how much this archangel pisses him off just by existing in the same space as him.

“Is he yours, Aziraphale?” 

“Oh, that’s just… that would be Raspberry, Gabriel.” Aziraphale looks a little flustered. Understandably so. “It gets a little lonely here sometimes, you know. I thought it would be nice to get myself some company.”

“Not a dog or a cat?”

Bashfully, Aziraphale glances down at his feet. “Something about him felt very… right. He’s awfully good company, you know.”

The archangel coos directly into Crowley’s face and that spark of hatred catches into a flame. A flame that eats him up inside because he knows he isn’t allowed to extinguish it just yet. “You’re a handsome one. I like the underbelly!” he comments, looking back at Aziraphale over his shoulder. He says, after a moment of consideration, “you know, Aziraphale, you don’t come off as someone who would own a snake. Especially one so… big. And black.”

“Ah, well. I suppose it’s not a bad thing to break out of that box, is it, now?”

Gabriel gives the top of Crowley’s head one final stroke and it tips the demon over the edge just a little; he can’t resist pulling open his jaws and baring his fangs at the archangel, releasing the angry hiss that's been building up in his throat ever since he showed himself in the bookshop. Gabriel swipes his hand away and jumps back so fast that he’s close to knocking over an entire shelf.

“Oh, ho, ho!” He breathes out a deep, guttural chuckle. “Not too friendly, are we? Ooh, that was frightening.”

“I am so sorry!” Aziraphale frets, not looking sorry at all. “I don’t know why he did that. He’s not always like that. Oh, Raspberry, what am I going to do with you?”

Dusting down his blazer, Gabriel pretends to show an interest in the structure of the shop as he awkwardly gravitates towards the door. He doesn’t look at Crowley again, but he can tell that the archangel feels genuinely shaken by the brief outburst, and he figures with a smug little wiggle of his head that his work here went as successfully as it could.

“I’m sorry again.” Aziraphale politely holds open the door for his superior. “Do come back another time. I promise Raspberry will be on his best behaviour next time.”

“Later,” Gabriel says, lips pressed together. He steps onto the street and promptly disappears around the corner.

After taking a moment, Aziraphale turns to look at Crowley. “I’d scold you, Crowley, but I know you could have done so much worse than hissing at him.” He picks up a watering can to tend to the plants lining the windowsills. “Like constriction.”

Crowley merely tastes the air and readjusts himself on the bannister so a different section of his body is under the heat lamp as he dozes.

.

  
  
The first words that Crowley utters when he finally collects the strength to shift back into his humanoid form is, “you had all the names in the world and you go for _Raspberry,_ Zira?”

**Author's Note:**

> comments? <33
> 
> MY DISCORD SERVER  
> https://discord.gg/SgGFvDC
> 
> MY TUMBLR  
> https://spicyjarvis.tumblr.com/


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